


Truth Be Told

by TheNarator



Series: The Adoption AU [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Creepy Wells is Creepy, Family of Choice, Obsession, Parent-Child Relationship, Possessive Behavior, Sibling Relationship, Unhealthy Relationships, You will be very confused if you haven't read the first part of the series, don't worry about who zoom is in this verse it's not important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 11:38:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6954970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNarator/pseuds/TheNarator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Jesse Chambers, adopted daughter of Johnny Chambers, finds out that Harrison Wells is her biological father and it goes uphill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth Be Told

**Author's Note:**

> i took some liberties with johnny's character, but given the liberties that the show took with his character (and jay's, and jesse's) i'm not gonna beat myself up about it.

Jesse Chambers is eleven years old when her father tells her she’s adopted.

She figures it out really. It’s true that Jesse more resembles her late mother, Tess, but a cursory examination of Jesse’s phenotype in comparison to that of Johnny Chambers reveals that according to basic genetics it’s highly unlikely that they’re related. When she confronts him about it her father -- her real father, the father who raised her and loves her and takes care of her -- tells her the truth. Tess had been pregnant with another man’s child when they’d gotten married, but Johnny had legally adopted Jesse after she’d been born. Jesse is, as far as he’s concerned, his own child.

He says almost nothing of her biological father, only that Tess didn’t want him to know that she was pregnant when she left and that he knows nothing of Jesse’s existence. When Jesse asks why Tess didn’t want him to know she was pregnant Johnny says only that she was afraid of him.

“Why was she afraid?” Jesse wants to know.

“It doesn’t matter,” her father tells her, kissing her forehead. “You are my daughter, and who that man was has no bearing on who you are.”

Jesse asks no more questions.

She doesn’t think very much about either of her biological parents when she’s a child. Her mother died in a car crash when Jesse was four, and Johnny is her father, so for the most part she concentrates on the family she has. Johnny Chambers is everything a parent should be: kind and caring and patient and proud and a thousand other things that make Jesse adore him. He listens to her when she’s angry and makes her hot chocolate when she’s sad. He pushes her to do well in school and brags to all his colleagues when she skips another grade. He talks to her about math and science like she’s an adult, but he knows when Jesse just needs to be a child.

If Jesse ever wants any family besides her father she needs look no further than the research lab where he works, trying to purify heavy water without residual radiation. Everyone he works with adores her, especially her father’s lab partner Jay. He comes to their house for dinner sometimes and Jesse calls him “Uncle Jay,” and he’s always happy to see her. He doesn’t talk to her like a child either, explaining his work as though he trusts she’ll understand, and Jesse loves the way he doesn’t patronize her.

When Jesse graduates from high school at fifteen her father is there to see it. He beams behind his video camera as she walks across the stage, jostling it slightly as he gives her a little wave. Jay is there too, clapping for her when her father can’t. She accepts her diploma solemnly and then turns to beam at the camera as she makes her way toward the stairs.

“I’m so proud of you Jess,” her father says, holding her tightly and rubbing her back.

“You did a great job kid,” says Jay, ruffling her hair.

Jesse grins at both of them.

Jesse is sixteen when the Particle Accelerator is turned on. She’s stayed close to home for college, so she’s able to watch it on TV with her father and they make a family night of it. Several of her classmates have gone to Central City to witness it firsthand, but her father’s opted to stay home and Jesse wants to watch it with him.

“He’s a great man,” Jesse remarks as Dr. Harrison Wells, founder of STAR Labs and the man who made the Particle Accelerator possible, gives his speech.

“Some would say the smartest man alive,” answers her father, although there’s something strange in his voice when he says it. It’s almost like bitterness, but that makes no sense.

“You disagree?” Jesse prompts.

“Oh no,” her father shakes his head, grabbing the popcorn bowl off the coffee table. “I’m sure he’s every bit as clever as people say.”

Jesse doesn’t know what to say to that, so she says nothing.

Not long after the Particle Accelerator turns on however, strange reports start coming in from Central City. People start cropping up that can do incredible, impossible, things. A man who can control the weather. A woman who can cast light from her palms. A dozen more of these ‘metahumans’ who can do any number of amazing things.

At first the only ones who make the news are criminals. They’re thieves and robbers for the most part, although a few of them are more violent than that. Jesse knows there are probably more than the ones that end up on TV, but it’s disheartening to see the worst members of society given such power. She wishes she could see more of the metas who are using their powers for good, or at least ordinary things, but sadly ordinary things aren’t newsworthy, even if they’re done in extraordinary ways. She wouldn’t blame most of the metas for not wanting anyone to know about their powers at all, the way the most public ones endeavor to give them all a bad name.

Then, at long last, a metahuman who’s not evil appears. The Flash he’s called, a hero for the modern age, a man who can run faster than the speed of sound and uses his powers for good. Jesse follows his career avidly as he takes down first one villain and then another. No one knows the identity of Central City’s mysterious savior, but plenty of people are curious, Jesse among them.

When her father finds the brochures for Central City College, he’s understandably concerned.

“I thought you wanted to stay close to home,” he complains, eyeing the brochures with distaste.

“I just think it might be a good idea for me to branch out more,” Jesse replies, fiddling with them nervously. “Spread my wings a bit, you know?”

“It’s dangerous there,” her father warns. He picks up one of the brochures and flips through it, frowning.

“Not with the Flash around,” Jesse counters.

“Yes with the Flash around,” he argues, tossing the brochure back onto the kitchen table. “He can’t be everywhere at once Jess, I’m just not sure it’s safe.”

“People go about their lives there everyday,” Jesse points out, rather reasonably in her own opinion.

“You don’t have to be one of them,” he says darkly. Jesse glares at him, and his face softens. “Graduate school,” he offers. “Just wait until then? Please?”

Jesse bites her lip, thinking.

“For me?” her father begs, and Jesse nods.

Jesse breezes through her undergraduate work. She could have finished in a year or two, if she chose, but there are so many interesting things to study that she quickly finds herself with five different majors. None of it’s particularly hard, but it keeps her busy and before she knows it three years have gone by and she’s scheduled to graduate with the class where she started. Not graduating early doesn’t bother her though, not when every day makes Central City safer and gives her father less excuse to disapprove.

Then, a year before Jesse is set to graduate, Harrison Wells is charged with two counts of murder.

Jesse had felt vaguely sorry for the man when the news had reached Keystone City that his adopted son had disappeared, but most people are more inclined to think that Cisco Ramon left on his own when it comes out that the police have a taped confession to at least two murders. Some people think he’s dead, another casualty of his foster father’s ambition. Jesse doesn’t know about Cisco, but she’s smart enough to know a sleazeball lawyer when she sees one and the lawyer defending Harrison Wells is definitely full of it. He manages to get the charges dropped, but Dr. Wells’ reputation is ruined by the whole affair.

“I warned you it was dangerous there,” her father reminds her as he sips his coffee, the two of them watching Harrison Wells force his way through the gaggle of reporters outside the courthouse on TV.

“Not because of this,” Jesse scoffs.

Her father smiles knowingly, but says nothing further.

Before Jesse knows it her graduation is fast approaching. She’s busy with final projects, although she devotes more time to contemplating a graduate program. Her father’s opinion is that the Mathematics program is the strongest, but Jesse’s thinking Physics. Jay is, of course, advocating for Biochemistry.

“You’re a smart girl Jesse,” her father tells her, placing a kiss to the top of her head. “Do what you think is going to help you leave your mark on the world.”

It is, unfortunately, the last piece of advice he’ll ever give her.

Jesse’s just getting out of her last biochem exam when she gets the call from the hospital. There’s been an accident, some kind of explosion at her father’s lab. He has her as his emergency contact. She should get to the hospital as soon as she can.

By the time she reaches the hospital, Jonathan Chambers had been declared dead fifteen minutes ago.

Jay, however, is still alive. For the next few hours Jesse sits by his bedside crying, for him and for her father, but he doesn’t wake up and Jesse can’t stay there forever. She has exams to take, projects to finish, and a funeral to plan. Jesse buries her father on the same day she takes her last particle physics exam, and eighteen days later she graduates from college. This time there’s no video of her walking across the stage, and no one but strangers clap for her.

Jay’s in a coma for four months, and during that period his heart stops twelve times. Every time Jay flatlines Jesse feels like her own heart is stopping. He can’t die. He’s all she has left. She waits, and she waits, putting off applying to graduate schools, but still he doesn’t wake up.

Then one night, as Jesse dozes lightly at Jay’s bedside, she’s awoken by a rush of wind. She opens her eyes blearily, to see a man standing on the other side of Jay’s bed. His face is hidden in shadow, but his suit is unmistakable. It’s the Flash.

He touches his hand to one of Jay’s, and immediately Jesse’s last living family opens his eyes.

Jay is a speedster, apparently. Flash had recognized the signs from his own experience gaining his powers, and it seems that contact with another speedster accelerated the process. Jay’s a bit confused at first, but he assures Flash that Jesse can be trusted and so the Savior of Central City takes off his mask.

The Flash, or Barry as he tells them to call him, is leaving Central City to found an organization he calls the Justice League. He doesn’t want to leave the city unprotected though, so he wants Jay to take his place. Under this plan, Jay will become the Central City Flash, and Barry will be the Flash with the Justice League.

Jay, however, declines.

“That accident at the lab?” he tells Jesse. “It was no accident. Our equipment was sabotaged.”

“How?” Jesse demands. “By who?”

“I’m not sure,” Jay says, shaking his head, “but I know I can’t leave Keystone City until I figure it out.

“I hope you understand,” he says, turning to Barry. “I can’t leave my city unprotected.”

Barry nods grimly. He is, after all, here for the very same reason.

Jay looks back at Jesse, worry in his eyes. “Can you give us a minute?” he asks Barry, and the Flash obligingly gives them the room.

“There’s something you need to know,” Jay tells her, taking one of her hands in both of his. “Your dad was going to tell you after you graduated, before you went to Central City. You need to know. You deserve to know.”

“Know what?” Jesse asks, shaking her head in confusion.

Jay looks at her with a pained expression, then drops his gaze to their joined hands. “Your biological father,” he says, not looking at her. “It’s Harrison Wells.”

Harrison Wells. The smartest man alive. The founder of STAR Labs. The killer of two innocent people. The man who got away with murder.

Her father?

Jesse excuses herself to get a cup of coffee. She’s not awake enough to deal with this, to deal with any of this, so she barely notices Barry leaning against the wall outside Jay’s hospital room until he pointedly clears his throat.

“I couldn’t help overhearing,” Barry says, not sounding like he’s very sorry for eavesdropping.

“I don’t see what it has to do with you,” Jesse snaps, and she shouldn’t snap at the Flash, but she’s extremely on edge and she doesn’t know what he wants from her and it’s too early in the morning for this.

Barry doesn’t seem to mind her snapping. “What are your feelings towards him?” he wants to know. “Your father, I mean. Harrison Wells.”

“He’s not my father,” Jesse tells him, and there’s bile in her throat at the very thought. “He’s a murderer. He killed those two men and got away with it, and no matter what else he is, he’s the man my mother was so afraid of she didn’t even tell him I existed.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Barry assures her. Then he pushes off the wall to come stand before her. “If you could fight him, would you?” Barry asks. “If you could oppose him, right his wrongs, and maybe even take him down, would you do it?”

“You’re a smart girl Jesse,” says her father's voice in her head. “Do what you think is going to help you leave your mark on the world.”

Jesse doesn’t even hesitate before answering. “In a heartbeat.”

Barry grins. “Then I think there’s someone you should meet.”

She expects him to take her to Central City, perhaps to meet some police detective trying to get proof of more murders. Maybe they’re planning a sting operation and she’ll go undercover. She hates the idea of pretending to want Harrison Wells for a father, but she thinks that taking down a man who got away with murder is something her real father would be proud of.

As it happens though, Barry doesn’t take her to Central City. Instead he takes her all the way to Starling City, and sets her down outside a small coffee shop called SC Jitters. Waiting inside is the long-missing, and most certainly not dead, Cisco Ramon.

“I think I have someone to test your Quicksilver Device,” Barry tells him excitedly.

Apparently, the Particle Accelerator had created the metahumans. Harrison Wells had known about it, had admitted to it on the tape where he confessed to the murders of Hartley Rathaway and Mason Bridges, but the sleazeball lawyer had gotten that part thrown out. Barry’s been investigating, looking for another way to prove it, but so far he’s had no luck.

“How am I supposed to investigate something not even you can prove?” Jesse asks. “You’re the Flash. I’m just . . . clever.”

Barry and Cisco make eye contact, and Cisco gets up. His disappears for a moment into the back of the shop, then emerges with what appears to be a metal belt with a glowing blue device on the front.

The Quicksilver Device, as it turns out, is a physical enhancer that can give the wearer temporary superspeed. Cisco offers it to her shyly, and Jesse looks back at Barry.

“You want me to be the Flash?” she asks, incredulous.

“No,” Barry corrects, “I want you to be Jesse Quick.”

The Quicksilver Device, as it turns out, works.

Jesse and Barry train for a month while Jesse applies to the Mathematics Graduate Program at Central City College. Cisco builds them a ton of equipment to train on, makes calorie-dense energy bars special for Jesse, and monitors their vitals on the special suits he designed while they race through the city. He’s surprisingly attentive to both Barry and Jesse, always concerned when either of them gets the slightest bit hurt, constantly checking to make sure the Quicksilver Device isn’t having an adverse effects on Jesse. He adjusts it several times, although Jesse can’t see anything wrong with it.

“I just want it to be perfect,” Cisco tells her. “I won’t be there to fix it if something goes wrong, you’ll have to take the train all the way back here, and that’s if you don’t end up getting hurt out in the field.”

“You mean you’re not coming with me?” Jesse asks, surprised.

Cisco shakes his head. “I . . . I can’t,” he says, not looking at her. “Not with Dr. Wells still there. I can’t, he’s too . . . everywhere.”

“But I’ll need you,” Jesse argues.

“You’ll get by,” Cisco assures her, smiling weakly.

“You built this thing,” Jesse tries. “You don’t wanna see me use it?”

“Trust me, you’ll make the news,” Cisco counters. “I’ll see plenty of both you and it.”

Jesse pauses for a minute, considering. “Why are you doing this?” she questions at last, gesturing to the Quicksilver Device, which he’s currently making alterations to.

“Doing what?” Cisco frowns. “Helping you? The Quicksilver Device is my invention, I can’t let it hurt you.”

“No,” Jesse shakes her head, “I mean why did you build it? Why are you helping Barry train me? Why do you want me to become a superhero?”

Cisco looks down, and for a few moments Jesse wonders if he’s even going to answer her. Then he looks up to meet her eye again, a pained expression on his face.

“Because I’m his son,” he says quietly. “Because half of what he’s done, he’s done for me. Because I couldn’t stop him, even though I was his child.”

“Not a fate I would wish on anyone,” Jesse commiserates.

Cisco nods grimly.

“But it’s your fate,” Jesse goes on, “and it’s mine too. That fate fell on both of us, and it’s going to take both of us to be more than just his children.”

Jesse holds out a hand.

“Please?” she asks. “Help me?”

Cisco comes with her to Central City.

He establishes another coffee shop called CC Jitters and builds another lab underneath it. Jesse works there part time as a barista to give herself an excuse to hang around, pretending she’s working to put herself through graduate school. She decides to study Mathematics, with the option to go back for a Physics degree later. She’s the sole beneficiary of her father’s life insurance policy, so she has a bit of money.

The people of Central City are a bit disconcerted when the Flash suddenly disappears. The villains get bolder, and a curfew is established to keep people inside after dark. It gets worse when it comes out that the Flash is off somewhere dealing with other things; clearly he isn’t working on some big plan to clean up the town, he’s just abandoned Central City to its fate. The city belongs to the supervillains now.

The emergence of Jesse Quick swiftly disabuses them of this notion. Coming out of the dark with white lightning at her heels Jesse makes it clear that while the Flash may be gone, the city is by no means unprotected. She starts small, taking on the type of criminals who lurk in back alleys, but the difficulty of her task ramps up quickly  as the more serious supervillains start to take notice of her. Then she fights Weather Wizard in broad daylight, and they start coming out of the woodwork.

Central City is ecstatic about its new superhero. They still miss the Flash, their first and foremost savior, but despite their loyalty to their hero they’re exceedingly grateful to have a new guardian angel in his place. Every time Jesse finishes a fight she has to speed away from a news crew, clamoring to know if she and the Flash work together, if he’d chosen and trained her, if he’d groomed her to be his successor or just to hold the fort until his return. Jesse never stops to give an interview, but it’s kind of nice to be so sought after. So valued. So loved.

Cisco is in her ear every night, giving her directions and monitoring her vitals through the suit he built for her. It’s comforting, knowing he’s there with her, keeping track of her every move and guiding her through her fights. He knows most of the villains she’s facing, whispers their weaknesses in her ears so that she can exploit them. He’s nervous at first, it’s been a while since he’s done this, but he gains confidence alongside Jesse until fighting supervillains in a mask starts to feel more like an adventure.

Then, Captain Cold appears.

Cisco had warned Jesse about the Cold Gun, his own invention that Dr. Wells had turned into a weapon. He spoke about it with shame in his voice, but it just made Jesse burn with anger that anyone could take advantage of Cisco that way. Cisco is good, a person of morals and ethics and convictions. That Harrison Wells could use him like that makes her hate him all the more.

Jesse first fights Captain Cold in a shopping mall, in the food court in broad daylight. People are already fleeing by the time Jesse arrives, but there are still too many around for her taste. Cisco had also warned her about Leonard Snart, about his tendency to target civilians as a distraction.

“So, you’re Miss Jesse Quick,” Cold drawls, aiming his bulky gun at her.

“You seem surprised,” Jesse calls back with a raised eyebrow. “Didn’t think I’d show up?”

“I was expecting someone taller,” Cold replies sarcastically, then fires.

Jesse dodges his first blast easily, and his second and third with only a little more difficulty.

“Your aim sucks!” Jesse jeers, smirking at him.

“You’re really not as quick as they make you out to be,” Cold replies, grinning from ear to ear, and nods to something over Jesse’s shoulder.

Jesse whips around, to see that an old woman in a wheelchair has been frozen to the floor. She strains to free herself, but the chair won’t budge, and by the way she’s strapped in it’s easy to see that she can’t move without it.

Jesse lets out a curse under her breath and races to help the old woman, carrying her with some difficulty to the entryway of a shop on the next level up before hurrying back down to face Cold again.

“Coward!” she spits venomously. “Why don’t you face me like a man?”

“Fight smarter, not harder,” Cold retorts, then turns around and fires on a woman trying to escape up a staircase covered in ice.

Jesse barely saves her, and then barely saves the next person Cold turns his gun on. He runs her around their little arena, saving civilian after civilian, until Jesse doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be able to keep up.

“Enough!” Jesse yells, placing herself squarely in Cold’s crosshairs, hand outstretched. “Did you come here just to hurt people or do you actually want to fight me?”

“I am fighting,” Cold responds smugly, then fires on Jesse again, forcing her to dodge, but only after she checks to make sure no one’s behind her this time.

“This tactic won’t work forever,” Jesse warns. “You’re running out of hostages.”

She’s right; the food court is emptying out already, and soon there won’t be any targets for him but Jesse herself.

“True,” Cold admits, “but by that point your little toy will be useless.”

“My toy?” Jesse repeats, injecting false confidence into her voice to sound more incredulous than curious. “Seems to me you’re the one holding the tinker toy, Captain Cold.”

“You think I haven’t guessed that your little belt is what’s giving you your speed?” Cold smirks. “You shouldn’t underestimate your opponents like that Sparky, it’ll get you killed.”

He fires again, and Jesse dodges, making a mental note to redesign her costume so the belt is worn under it. “Trust me,” she fires back, “the battery life on this thing’s a little better than you think.”

“Not expecting you to run out of juice,” Cold tells her. “Just waiting for my little friend back at base to find the hole in the programming.”

“Hole?” Jesse laughs. “I think my friend designs his tech a little better than to let it leave the worktable with flaws in the code.”

“Not a flaw,” Cold corrects, “a back door. You think I wouldn’t recognize the work of the guy who built my gun for me?”

“He didn’t build it for you!” Jesse snarls. “He didn’t make it a weapon at all!”

“And yet here it is,” Cold isn’t stupid enough to hold it up for Jesse to see. Bastard. “I bet he’s wishing he’d added a way to remotely deactivate it now, isn’t he? You honestly think he’d design something as powerful as your little belt without leaving himself a way to shut it off from wherever he’s hiding?”

“He wouldn’t,” Jesse spits, but inside she’s not entirely sure. Would Cisco do that? It seems unlike him to leave her vulnerable like that, but at the end of day he doesn’t actually know her all that well. She’s the biological child of the man who betrayed him, who hurt him so deeply he had to run all the way to Starling City to let his wounds heal. Could Cisco trust her, knowing that?

She doesn’t dare ask aloud to her earpiece, and Cold clearly isn’t going to give her the time to figure it out. “The newest member of my crew should be finding your weak spot right . . . about . . . now!”

He fires directly at Jesse, and Jesse instinctively turns and flees. She wills her feet to carry her, wills her power not to desert her as she runs from the flames that will freeze her solid. She closes her eyes, waiting for the icy chill to spread along her back . . .

It doesn’t come. Suddenly Jesse finds herself on the far side of the room, well out of reach of the Cold Gun. Cold hesitates, staring at her blankly, and it’s all the opening Jesse needs. She zips back across the room, grabs hold of the gun and smashes it against the bridge of Cold’s nose.

Captain Cold drops like a rag doll, and stays down until the cops arrived.

As she tries to leave the mall Jesse finds that she has to stop short to avoid the swarm of reporters that have gathered around the entrance. They’re everywhere, snapping pictures and shouting questions, and in desperation Jesse runs up the side of the building just to get away from them.

Then she returns to coffee shop, where Cisco is waiting for her.

“I wouldn’t have put a back door in the programming,” he tells her quietly when she sits down beside him. “I wouldn’t put you at risk like that.”

Jesse shakes her head. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Your tech’s been used against you too much.”

“I trust you,” Cisco assures her. “Captain Cold doesn’t know what it’s like to trust someone, but that’s his loss. I trust you, Jesse. I know you’d never use your powers for evil.”

“Thank you,” Jesse says, voice breaking as she feels abruptly overwhelmed by the weight of Cisco’s belief in her. The entire city looks to her as a savior, and yet knowing that Cisco thinks of her as someone trustworthy feels a thousand times more significant. She sniffs, finding herself suddenly on the verge of tears.

“Sh sh,” Cisco says, opening his arms, and Jesse crawls over to him and lets him fold her into his embrace. They sit like that, holding each other, for Jesse doesn’t know how long.

It reminds her of how her father used to hold her, and she doesn’t know how to feel about that.

***

Harrison Wells never truly recovered from the loss of his son. He learned how to work again, to function, but that was all he managed. He eats, sleeps and maintains himself. He drives to work, tries to lose himself in projects and never quite manages it. Without his child his life is empty, devoid of meaning. Nothing since Tess’s death has made him feel so lost.

It isn’t that he thinks he’ll never see Cisco again. He knows, in his heart, that he will one day find his boy and bring him home. In the meantime however, there’s nothing for him to do but wait for information, any information, to come to him. He’s offering a considerable reward for any hint, any clue as to the whereabouts of his child, and despite the damage the Flash had done to his reputation there are those still loyal to him. They search for Cisco. And Harrison waits.

One thing besides the hope that he will see his son again keeps him going, and that’s his hatred of the Flash. He knows exactly who is to blame for Cisco’s disappearance: the Scarlet Speedster, and his mad quest to find and prove the source of the metahumans. Had the Flash never come into their lives Cisco would still be with him. He’d never have known the truth about the Particle Accelerator, never found out what had happened to Hartley Rathaway, and never once questioned Harrison’s love for him. Had it not been for the Flash poisoning his mind, persuading him that Harrison couldn’t be trusted, Cisco never would have left.

Harrison does everything he can to make the Flash’s life miserable. He publicly accuses him of holding back against Zoom. He gives his support to General Eiling, a singularly unpleasant man on a crusade against the metahumans. He searches for the speedster’s identity, knowing that broadcasting it would ensure that the so-called hero would never get a moment’s peace.

He’s absolutely beside himself with rage when the Flash decides to run. He flees the city under the guise of founding some organization, successfully putting himself outside Harrison’s reach. Harrison would like to have followed him, but the location of the headquarters for his little club is kept secret. Besides, he tells himself, he needs to stay in Central City. There’s only a slim chance that Cisco will come back on his own, but there’s still a chance.

Another speedster crops up in the Flash’s absence, but Harrison pays her no attention. He doesn’t much care for the speculation that she’s the Flash’s protege; she isn’t the one he wants revenge on. There’s a chance she’s trying to muscle in on the Flash’s territory, but Flash doesn't seem particularly concerned, so it will do him no good to set her up as his replacement. There’s nothing to be gained from hurting or helping her, so for the most part Harrison simply ignores her.

Then, one evening as he’s distractedly watching the news while working on a new invention, the press corner her outside a shopping mall. Harrison just happens to glance up as her face flashes across the screen, and when he sees her he nearly drops the tool he’s holding.

It’s Tess.

It’s not Tess, it can’t be Tess, but a girl that looks nearly identical to a younger version of her is currently skidding to a stop to avoid crashing into the camera waving in her face. Harrison rewinds and pauses the video, freezing on a relatively clear image of her. Even with dark hair and the ridiculous red mask, the resemblance is uncanny.

Harrison pulls the image up on his computer and begins trying to synthesize a picture without the mask. He uses Tess’s features for reference and soon he has an approximation of Jesse Quick’s unobstructed face. This he runs through STAR Labs facial recognition software, and before long he has a match.

Jesse Chamber, adopted daughter of Jonathan Chambers. Former resident of Keystone City and current resident of Central City. A student of Mathematics at Central City College. A barista at a coffee shop called CC Jitters.

And, according to her birth certificate, the daughter of Tess Chambers and Harrison Wells.

Harrison sits back in his chair. A thousand thoughts spin wildly through his head. Tess is alive? She’d been pregnant when last they saw each other? She’d gone to have her baby, their baby, in Keystone City without telling him? She’d left him to live with another man, let their child be adopted by someone else? This girl, this Jesse Quick, is his daughter?

Another facial recognition search reveals no sign of Tess in Keystone or Central City, and looking further into the matter Harrison discovers a second death certificate. So Tess really is dead, and yet she’d been alive four years longer than he had believed. He had missed four years of her life, and she’d spent them with someone else. Why? If it hadn’t been her burned and mangled body that had been pulled from her crashed car, what could have possessed her not to come home to him? Why would she choose to spend her life with someone else when Harrison had put his heart and soul into being her husband?

His first instinct is to find this man, this Jonathan Chambers, and demand answers from him. Unfortunately it seems he is dead too, which leaves Harrison none the wiser as to Tess’s motives for leaving him. The only other person who might know, who might have any idea, is Jesse.

Jesse Chambers. Jesse Quick. Jesse Wells, in another life. He doesn’t know how she could have gotten her powers from all the way in Keystone City, but clearly she’s a metahuman. How had her father allowed such a thing? Harrison never would have let it happen to his child, hadn’t let it happen to Cisco. If he’d been there for Jesse, if he’d been allowed to be her father . . .

Well, there’s no time like the present. Jonathan Chambers is dead, and Tess died years ago, so Jesse must be in need of a parent to lean on. She’s going through a difficult time, between the death of her ‘father’ and dealing with her metahuman powers; she’s so confused she thinks she needs to use them to be a vigilante, of all things. She needs someone to be there for her, to take care of her.

Harrison knows how to take care of a lost child.

***

Because Jesse usually goes down to the secret lab beneath CC Jitters after work, she’s always the one to close up shop. Sometimes Cisco comes out to help, or to greet her when she returns from patrol, but for the most part he stays downstairs. In Starling City he had at least sometimes gone outside, but in Central City he seems nearly afraid to show his face in sunlight. Jesse brings him food, so he never leaves the coffee shop, and he only comes upstairs after everyone else has cleared out. Jesse jokes that he’s paranoid, but Cisco just tells her that they can’t be too careful.

His paranoia seems more justified when Harrison Wells turns up at the shop.

It’s twenty minutes after closing time, and Jesse’s counting the money from the cash register. It’s quiet, the lights are dim, and the ‘Closed’ sign has been hung on the door, but she hasn’t gotten around to locking it yet. Then, there comes a tap-tap on the glass.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” Jesse calls without looking up.

Despite this the bell above the doorframe chimes as the door opens.

“I said we’re-” Jesse begins, turning in annoyance, but her voice dies in her throat when she catches sight of the man currently stepping into the shop.

“Even for me?” Wells asks playfully, smiling as he closes and locks the door behind himself.

Jesse hesitates. She’s painfully aware that Cisco is downstairs, and that if she doesn’t go down to meet him soon he’ll come up to see what’s wrong. If Wells sees him it’s all over, they’ll both have to flee the city, assuming there isn’t some kind of goon squad outside waiting to grab them if they try to run. She’s not wearing her belt, and she couldn’t get to it in time if Wells decides to grab her, so they have no chance of escape. She has no way to warn Cisco not to come out, no way of knowing if Wells already knows he’s here, and as she stands there frozen with indecision the look on his face gets more and more curious.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he laughs, taking slow, deliberate steps toward the counter where Jesse has the money spread out.

Scared. Yes, it makes sense for her to be scared of a strange man wandering into the shop after hours. Immediately Jesse begins fumbling away the money, letting her hands shake as though she’s frightened.

“I didn’t come here to steal from you, Jesse,” Wells says reassuringly, pausing in his advance. “I have more money than this little shop generates in a decade.”

Jesse slams her hand down on the counter, pretending to gather her courage. “I don’t care how much money you have,” she says firmly, hoping that it doesn’t sound too firm. “We’re. Closed.”

Wells smiles again, almost a smirk as edges of his mouth turn smugly upwards. “Even for family?”

Jesse stares at him, realization dawning in her mind as her stomach twists painfully in genuine fear. Wells isn’t here for Cisco. He’s here for her.

When she doesn’t answer, Wells’ eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Your mother never told you?” he asks.

Jesse drops her frightened act and narrows her eyes at him. “I didn’t think she told you.”

“She didn’t,” Wells confirms. “I had to figure it out myself.”

“Don’t you think that should have communicated something to you?” Jesse says waspishly.

Wells shakes his head. “She should have told me.”

“I’m glad she didn’t,” Jesse glares.

Wells smiles again, continuing his leisurely stroll toward the counter until he stands before her. “Where are you living these days?” he asks conversationally.

“What?” Jesse sputters. “I’m not going to tell you where I live-”

“A dorm?” Wells guesses, ignoring her outburst. “Off campus apartment? Neither one can be very nice.”

“What does that have to do with literally anything?” Jesse demands.

“There’s no reason for you to live in squalor,” Wells says gently, “not when my house has five bedrooms.”

“You want me to move in with you?” Jesse realizes incredulously.

“I want you to live comfortably,” Wells corrects. “I want to take care of you.”

“I don’t need you to take care of me!” Jesse snaps.

“Of course not,” Wells gentles, holding up a hand against her anger. “You don’t need anyone to take care of you, but I want to do it anyway. I want to be the father I couldn’t be when you were a child.”

“You are not my father,” Jesse tells him, trying to put as much cold steel into her voice as she can.

“I can be though,” Wells insists. “I didn’t get the chance before, but I have it now. I want to be the father you deserve. That you’ve always deserved.”

“I had a father,” Jesse says, low and dangerous. “You are not him.”

Wells narrows his eyes in annoyance. “He wasn’t your father,” he says icily. “I am.”

“Really?” Jesse smiles, laughing slightly through her nose. “I suppose that means that what you had with Cisco wasn’t real, just because you adopted him?”

Jesse realizes her mistake in using Cisco’s first name alone when Wells’ eyes go wide. He looks at her searchingly, eyes flicking over her face, and Jesse is once more acutely aware of how close Cisco is. She knows Wells is watching her every move, and she fights the urge to look at the door to the basement. Instead she looks down at the counter, knowing even as she does so that she’s giving herself away.

“You know him,” Wells concludes breathlessly.

“I-” Jesse stutters.

“Where is he?” Wells demands, sounding frantic and full of hope at the same time. “Do you know?”

Jesse raises her chin defiantly. “He doesn’t want to talk to you,” she answers simply.

Wells stumbles back a step, raising a hand to his mouth. “But he’s alright?” he asks. “He’s . . . he’s not with the Flash?”

Jesse swallows. The concern in Wells’ voice is genuine, and there’s a desperation in his eyes as he looks at her beseechingly. She feels suddenly sorry for him, and has to remind herself that he’s a murderer, that he’s hurt Cisco and would do it again.

Still, she can’t help but take some degree of pity on him. “No,” she says vaguely, “he’s not with the Flash.”

“Is he in the city?” Wells prompts.

“That I won’t tell you,” Jesse says firmly, glaring at him. He is, after all, the reason Cisco has been cowering in the basement since they arrived.

Wells smiles tiredly, but there’s a hint of pride in his expression as he looks at Jesse. “That’s fair,” he says simply. “You have no reason to trust me. I’ll have to prove myself to you first.”

“There is nothing you could do that could ever convince me to trust you,” Jesse tells him, trying for a tone of finality and hoping that she manages it.

“I will,” he assures her, his face calm and implacable. “I will find a way to make you believe that I love you, both of you, and that I’m worthy of being your father.”

He reaches out a hand toward her, but Jesse flinches away and takes a step back. Wells looks disheartened, but withdraws his hand and looks at her with no less determination in his eyes.

“I promise you, Jesse Quick,” he swears, “that I will be a father both you and Cisco can be proud of.”

Jesse looks at him in horror. “You . . . you know?” she asks, her throat dry.

“You’re my daughter,” Wells raises an eyebrow. “I did my homework.”

Jesse breathes deep and tries to calm her racing heart. This is dangerous information for him to have, especially given his well-documented hatred of the Flash. This is information he can hold over her head, that he can use against her, or worse, against her friends. How far would Barry go, to keep her identity a secret? How far would Cisco go?

“Don’t worry,” Wells smiles again, soft around the edges and clearly intended as a comfort, “your secret’s safe with me. I have to prove that you can trust me.”

“Thank you,” Jesse says hesitantly, and Wells’ smile widens.

“Of course,” he nods pointedly. “After all, we’re family.”

With that he turns around and walks out of the shop, leaving Jesse feeling somewhat dazed and excruciatingly vulnerable behind him.

Jesse doesn’t tell Cisco about Wells’ visit. He’s frightened enough of leaving the lab as it is, and though Jesse knows now that the danger is real it won’t help Cisco to be more afraid. Cisco’s been through so much, suffered so much at Wells’ hand, and Jesse can’t bear to put him through any more if she can shoulder that burden herself. Jesse doesn’t know how he’ll take the news that Wells is still looking for him, and worse, that Wells suspects he’s in the city, and some selfish part of her worries that he’ll run away. She can’t leave Central City, but she doesn’t know if she can do what she does without Cisco’s help. It’s more than that though, Cisco is her friend, and she doesn’t want to lose him. She doesn’t exactly lie, but she doesn’t mention that Wells approached her, and she stops badgering Cisco to consider risking a trip outside.

Just because he’s trapped in the basement doesn’t mean Cisco doesn’t have a social calendar though. He has regular visitors who come to the coffee shop after hours, sneaking in the back entrance to visit with him upstairs. Two of Cisco’s old coworkers from his days at STAR Labs come often: Dr. Caitlin Snow, currently the head of the Biomedical Division of Mercury Labs, and Ronnie Raymond, who still works at STAR Labs partially to keep an eye on Wells. They’re married, and more than once they bring their adorable baby for Cisco to coo over. He makes her a plethora of mechanical baby toys, but she likes chewing on the strings of his hoodie while he holds her best.

Less frequent but still regular visitors are two police detectives, Iris West and Eddie Thawne. Apparently they used to date, but it doesn’t seem to have affected their partnership at all. Iris, Jesse is surprised to learn, is in a long-distance relationship with Barry, and Eddie likes to playfully flirt with Cisco just to make him blush. Every once and a while all five of them will come together and there’s something of a party, although they have to keep noise to a minimum to avoid attracting attention. When Ronnie reports that Wells is in a better mood than usual Jesse just looks at the floor, but they all assume she’s simply worried.

What surprises Jesse is how quickly they invite her into their circle. They’ve all known each other for years, but with a single nod from Cisco the others are treating her like one of their own. Like Cisco they all welcome her into their lives, talking to her as if she were an old friend, asking about her life and her studies and her work as a vigilante. Caitlin assures her that she can come to the Snow-Raymond house any time for medical treatment, and more than once Iris and Eddie involve her in a police investigation. It’s fun working with them, and for the first time since her father’s death she feels like she’s part of a family.

Remembering her father, however, only makes Jesse wonder about Cisco’s own family. She knows that Wells adopted him when he was twelve, but any earlier than that he never talks about. She has no idea what happened to his birth parents, why he’d been left vulnerable to Wells, and for quite some time she’s too afraid to ask.

Eventually she plucks up the courage.

“What happened to your parents?” she wonders, one evening as they’re watching a movie down in Cisco’s lab. “Your birth parents, I mean.”

Cisco hesitates with a piece of popcorn halfway to his mouth, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “What brought this on?” he asks nervously.

“Just curious, I guess,” she shrugs. “I had a pretty good childhood, with my dad, my real dad. What about you?”

“It was . . . okay,” he says evasively, not taking his eyes off the TV.

“Just okay?” Jesse prompts.

Cisco sighs and turns to look at her, switching off the TV as he does so. “It was okay,” he repeats. “My parents and I never saw eye to eye. They preferred my brother-”

“You had a brother?” Jesse interrupts. “Wells couldn’t have adopted him too? Or was he also-”

Cisco cuts her off with a short, humorless laugh. “Oh please,” he says bitterly, “he was the reason Wells adopted me. My parents signed me over to him so he’d get Dante into some music school.”

Jesse gapes at him. “You mean, you weren’t an orphan? Wells took you away from your family?”

“Not by force,” Cisco says defensively, curling away from her. “They gave me up. They sold me.”

“Is that what Wells told you?” Jesse asks with a raised eyebrow.

Cisco pauses, as though this hadn’t occurred to him before. “Yeah,” he admits slowly. “I . . . I never thought to question it . . .”

“We have to find them!” Jesse insists, pushing on his shoulder urgently. “They could want you back! You might have a family Cisco, you could-”

“No,” Cisco cuts her off sharply, “I won’t put them in danger like that.”

Jesse shakes her head. “No one knows you’re working with me, no criminal in Central City would even think to target them.”

“Not one of Jesse Quick’s enemies,” Cisco clarifies, “one of mine. You don’t think Wells is watching them? What’s he going to do if I turn up on their doorstep, just let me go back to them like nothing’s happened?”

Jesse pauses. She hadn’t considered that Wells might be watching the Ramon family home, but now she thinks about it it makes sense. After all, he seems to know a lot about her, and he’s been searching for Cisco for going on two years. He might well have spies in all kinds of places.

Still, Jesse can’t quite let it go. It doesn’t seem fair that Cisco should be separated from a family that might well still love him and want him back, just because Wells is still hanging his power and influence over their heads like the blade of a guillotine. A quick google search for ‘Dante Ramon’ reveals the wikipedia article of a concert pianist, which makes sense given that Cisco mentioned Dante going to music school. His picture looks a little bit like Cisco, and a recent news article tells her that he’s just finishing up a tour in Europe. He will be returning to Central City, where he’ll be giving a concert to celebrate his homecoming.

“We should go,” Jesse proclaims, waving the advertisement in Cisco’s face.

Cisco snatches it away from her to examine it critically. “No,” he says flatly, tossing it aside.

Jesse catches it before it falls. “Come on,” she wheedles, “you don’t have to talk to him, just listen to him play.”

“You don’t think Wells is gonna be watching that show like a hawk?” Cisco demands.

“Why should he?” Jesse asks skeptically. “You haven’t seen Dante in years, and you’ve never tried to contact him. Why should Wells think you’re going to be at the show?”

Cisco hesitates, looking off into space with a distressed expression, and Jesse puts a hand on his arm.

“You don’t have to talk to him,” she repeats, and after a moment’s hesitation Cisco nods.

Cisco looks good in a tux. He still has money pouring in from both the coffee shops and his patents, so he buys a nice one, and a nice dress for Jesse. They choose balcony seats, for privacy and to make sure Cisco doesn’t get claustrophobic with too many people around, and Jesse wears her belt under her dress and speeds them to the concert hall. She takes the most roundabout possible route; if Wells is having her followed, he’ll have a hard time working out where she ends up.

It’s not just Dante’s concert: his performance comes at the very end, and is preceded by several pieces played by the entire orchestra. Jesse fidgets through them all, but claps politely for each one. For someone who spent nearly the last two years in a series of basements Cisco seems oddly at home, and Jesse wonders if it’s from his brother’s early career or from his time as Wells’ adopted son.

Finally Dante Ramon comes onstage to thunderous applause. Cisco looks nervous as Dante sits down, but Jesse places her gloved hand in his and squeezes.

Dante Ramon really is a brilliant pianist. Jesse knows almost nothing about classical music, and yet the passion with which he plays is universal. His fingers fly over the keys as though his hands were creatures unto themselves, and the music that pipes through the concert hall is frantic and haunting and vibrant and sad. Jesse finds herself riveted, staring at Dante as though transfixed, and she doesn’t realize she’s stopped paying attention to Cisco until she suddenly feels his hand grasp her arm.

“I want to leave,” he says quietly, and his voice is shaking. “Get me out of here.”

Jesse hesitates a moment, nonplussed, but when she sees Cisco’s ashen face she grabs hold of him and speeds the two of them out of there.

By the time they reach the coffee shop, Cisco is crying.

“Hey,” Jesse soothes, guiding him to one of the plush couches under the windows, “hey, you’re okay.”

Cisco takes deep, shuddering breaths, and after a few moments of Jesse rubbing his back he’s able to compose himself enough to speak.

“He dropped out of his music school,” Cisco sobs. “He played hooky all the time, skipped school to hang out with his friends. He wasn’t . . . he couldn’t do that.”

“So?” Jesse asks gently, no less confused than before. “It’s been a long time.”

“He grew up!” Cisco shouts, looking at her desperately, then curls in on himself. “He grew up and I missed it!”

Jesse pulls Cisco into her arms and lets him cry into her shoulder. They sit like that for several minutes, holding each other, neither of them saying a word.

“My dad missed my college graduation,” Jesse breaks the silence at last. “He died, and he . . . he wasn’t there. I missed him.”

She pulls back to look Cisco in the eye. “I miss him.”

Jesse doesn’t cry. She’s cried too many tears for her father and she doesn’t have any left, but she lets Cisco fold her back into his arms and the two of them sit there, talking quietly together, for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Harrison Wells announces his intention to begin providing medical treatment for the metahuman prisoners in Iron Heights.

He has a responsibility to Central City, he says, that he’s ignored for far too long. Up to now he’s done only the bare minimum to solve the metahuman crisis, but now he’s going to step up and start doing more. He’s the most powerful man in Central City, and now that the Flash has abandoned them if falls to him to protect everyone. He’s going to be the hero that the city needs.

He claims he has a way to cure the metahumans, to reverse their mutations to reduce them to normal humans once more. With the city’s permission he plans to move them to special holding cells in a private facility, where they can receive treatment in peace. They’re all just ill, he says, victims of a corruption of healthy cellular activity that could very well be altering brain chemistry to produce violent and lawless behavior. He can fix them, if given the chance.

“Do you buy that?” Jesse wants to know as she and Cisco watch his announcement on TV.

Cisco shakes his head. “Not for a minute.”

The city believes it though, and before long the entire metahuman wing of Iron Heights is being transferred to a STAR Labs facility on the outskirts of the city called Clearwater Asylum. Wells lets the press tour the facility while it’s still empty, see both how comfortable and how secure it is. Steel walls painted bright colors. Plush beds with specialized restraints. Shiny new medical equipment that makes Jesse feel a little sick to her stomach. The transfers occur the day after the news report airs.

A part of Jesse wants to believe it. Wells is a lot of terrible things, but even Cisco will admit that he’s brilliant; if anyone can find a cure for the metahumans, it’s him. The solution is too neat, too clean not to be appealing, and despite the creepiness of the whole thing Wells is nothing if not persuasive.

Once the metahumans are all safely ensconced in Clearwater though, the transparency of the project completely disappears. There are no more mentions of the facility in the news, and no updates on the treatments occurring within are forthcoming. Everyone seems to have forgotten about the metahumans, abandoning them to their fate, and exactly what that fate is begins to weigh heavier and heavier on Jesse’s mind. It becomes difficult to even turn metahuman criminals in when she apprehends them, knowing they’ll be sent to a mysterious asylum from which no one has thus far emerged.

“Do you think there’s a chance,” Jesse wonders, “even a chance that this is legit?”

“I don’t know,” Cisco replies, “but I know how we can find out.”

They start looking into it. Cisco scours the medical and scientific journals for any mentions of the Clearwater Asylum or its methods, but if they’ve achieved any results then they aren’t being published. Jesse Quick begins to ask questions, but no one seems to have answers for her. Iris and Eddie begin an investigation of their own, but their superiors quickly grow suspicious and put a stop to it. If anyone else suspects that anything is wrong they’re too afraid to go up against Wells. After what happened to Hartley Rathaway and Mason Bridges, Jesse can hardly blame them.

Eventually it becomes clear that there’s only one way forward. They’re going to have to investigate Clearwater Asylum themselves.

Between the two of them it’s pretty easy to sneak in. Jesse’s speed is enough to get her past the guards and Cisco hacks the security system so not even her trails of white lightning give her away. While he feeds the guards looped footage Cisco watches Jesse on the security cameras as she makes her way through the facility. Most of the residents are asleep in their rooms, but the room marked ‘Shawna Baez’ is empty. Jesse apprehended Peek-a-Boo weeks ago. She should be here.

They find her in one of the labs, blindfolded and strapped to what looks like a dentist’s chair, covered in electrodes. There’s some kind of instrument in her mouth, stopping her from speaking, but it can’t prevent the little whimpers of pain and fear from escaping. Two scientists are standing over her: a man neither of them recognize, and Dr. Wells.

“I cannot give this my medical sanction Dr. Wells,” insists the one neither of them recognize, old and balding with a white moustache. “Initial results were optimistic, but since then we’ve had very little success using electricity to interrupt their powers.”

“It’s still the most promisingly lead we have,” argues Wells, pacing back and forth in agitation. “Try again.”

“But Dr. Wells-” he protests.

“Try again!” Wells shouts.

The man looks lost, looking back and forth between Wells and the whimpering Shawna, but Wells clearly has no patience for him. He strides confidently over to a control panel and without hesitation flips one of the switches.

Shawna screams around her gag as she convulses on the table. The lights go momentarily dim, and there’s a horrible buzzing sound coming from the machines to which she’s hooked up. Jesse watches in horror as Wells runs an electric current through Shawna’s body, and when she tears her eyes from the writhing metahuman she can see that a pleased little smile is ghosting over Wells’ face.

As she speeds out of there, Jesse makes a stop at the circuit breaker and cuts the power to the entire facility. She doesn’t care how many metahumans escape, or how hard she has to work to catch them all. No one deserves this.

“We have to do something,” says Jesse once they’re regrouped at the coffee shop. They’re downstairs, safely tucked into the deepest corner of the lab, but Cisco’s risked a trip upstairs to bring Jesse hot chocolate. She’s feeling very shaken up.

“It’ll be tricky,” Cisco points out, but he doesn’t disagree. “The City Council's given it the OK.”

“They can’t know what’s really going on,” Jesse protests.

“It’s hard to say what they know,” Cisco argues, shaking his head.

“We can’t just do nothing!” Jesse insists.

At this, Cisco smiles. “Oh, the City Council might know what Wells is doing,” he explains, “but the city itself does not. They already know, or at least suspect, the Wells is a murderer. What do you think they’ll do to him if we release proof that he’s torturing prisoners in sadistic medical experiment?”

Jesse looks determinedly back at him. “Alright,” she says, “what’s the plan?”

***

Harrison Wells had never been a particularly patient man. The four months between Cisco’s transfer to private school and the events that had led to his adoption were unpleasant. The ongoing search for Cisco after his disappearance frustrates him to no end. Even the wait for his employees to produce results, compared to Cisco near instantaneous brilliance, grates on his nerves.

So the indefinite wait for a means to reverse Jesse’s metahuman mutation is nothing short of agonizing.

He can think of no better gift for his daughter than a cure for her condition. To lift the burden of her mutation, the powers that make her think it’s her responsibility to risk her life each night to protect the ungrateful populace of Central City, is something no one else can do for her. This will prove that he loves her, that he cares for her and wants to protect her. This will prove that he can protect her. He can be her father.

None of that will be possible, however, without the cure, and his incompetent staff at Clearwater are simply not getting anywhere. They lack the conviction to take the risks that need to be taken with their experiments, and as a result they have nothing to show for their efforts. No matter how Harrison prods them, no matter how many times he replaces them, he still can’t seem to squeeze results out of them.

One evening roughly a month after the transfer of the metahuman prisoners to Clearwater finds Harrison in his office, pouring over resumes of potential new hires. He’s started looking at criminal records, finding that those scientists unable to find work due to violent tendencies are best suited to his purposes. It’s late, he’s the last one in the lab, and he’s just about to give up and go home to his empty house when the sound of his office door opening catches his attention.

“Jesse,” he says in astonishment as the girl herself closes the door behind her.

“Dr. Wells,” she greets him stiffly, then comes to stand before his desk. She still keeps a significant distance between them, as well as the desk, and Harrison feels it prudent to keep his seat. He doesn’t want to frighten her off, not when she’s come to see him of her own volition.

“It’s wonderful to see you,” he says honestly, grinning broadly. “I’m glad you came.”

“I figured we should talk,” she explains, without going into detail.

“What would you like to talk about?” Harrison leaves the conversation wide open. He’s prepared to give her anything, if only she’ll stay.

“Clearwater Asylum,” Jesse tells him, and there’s a note of coldness in her voice that makes him wary.

“Are you curious about the facility?” Harrison offers. He tries to keep his tone neutral, but something about this conversation is starting to feel familiar.

“It’s a very generous project,” Jesse remarks, not giving anything away.

“I’m a generous person,” Harrison hedges. “If you like I can show you just how generous. What strikes your fancy? Clothes? Books?”

“I don’t want your money,” Jesse interrupts, “I want to know why you opened Clearwater.”

“To provide treatment for criminals with genetic mutations,” Harrison recites.

“Is that all?” Jesse raises an eyebrow.

Harrison smiles slyly. “All I’m going to admit to on tape.”

The look on Jesse’s face is nothing short of adorable, and Harrison can’t help but laugh. “Did you think I wouldn’t figure out your little sting operation?” he asks patronizingly, waggling a finger at her. “No no no, I’ve fallen for this trick once and I guarantee it won’t happen again.”

Jesse continues to gape at him, and Harrison’s eyes begin to rove about the room, trying to spot the cameras she doubtlessly placed at some point while he’d been out of the office.

“Cisco?” he calls, hoping fervently that he’s right about this. “I have a suspicion that you’re listening, and if you are I want you to know that I still care about you. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss you and want you to come home.”

He turns his attention to Jesse, his eyes boring into hers. “I want both of you to come home.”

Jesse shakes her head in disgust. “There is nothing you could do that would make either of us want anything to do with you,” she spits, apparently uncaring that she’s given herself away. Cisco is listening after all.

“Nothing?” Harrison challenges, smirking. “I think I’ve got something in the works that might change your mind.”

“Oh, and what’s that?” Jesse demands.

“A cure,” Harrison tells her.

Jesse looks at him in confusion. “A cure? For what?”

“For your mutation,” he explains earnestly, standing up. “I’m experimenting with a few treatments on the patients at Clearwater-”

“You’re torturing them!” Jesse protests, but Harrison forges on.

“-and in time I will have a way to restore you to how you were,” he finishes. “Just give me a little time, a little of your trust, and I can make you human again.”

Then, Jesse smiles. For one glorious moment Harrison thinks that he’d gotten through to her, that the promise of a cure is enough and she finally believes that he cares about her. She’ll come to him, let him hold her, and then the two of them will go to retrieve Cisco. He’ll be able to savor the solid, comforting presence of both his children in his arms, and then they’ll all go home.

Instead Jesse lifts up the hem her shirt a few inches, to reveal a mechanical device wrapped securely around her waist.

“I’m not a metahuman,” she says, equal parts savagery and triumph in her voice. “I didn’t just end up with this power, Cisco gave it to me. I chose this, and I wouldn’t ever want to give it up.”

With that she speeds from the room, leaving Harrison to call uselessly after her.

***

Jesse makes her way back to the coffee shop by a roundabout route, letting the wind whip the tears from her eyes. She feels empty inside, failure sitting heavy in her stomach, making her chest feel hollow. Cisco is quiet in her earpiece, a dejected silence settling over the comms.

Their plan didn’t work. They don’t have what they need to bring Harrison down. He’s won.

Once she reaches the coffee shop Jesse speeds inside and locks the door, then leans tiredly against it. She feels drained and exhausted, like she’s just run a marathon without her belt, and as she takes it off she feels suddenly unworthy of it. What good is she, if she can’t even take down a supervillain who has no powers at all?

“Cisco,” she calls as she makes her way down to the lab. “I need ice cream and a movie, how about you?”

Cisco doesn’t answer her.

As she reaches the bottom of the staircase she looks curiously around, her eyes sweeping the lab for any sign of her friend. Instead what she finds is an overturned chair. Cisco’s headset unplugged from the computer and tossed carelessly to the floor. He slushy spilled over the keyboard.

“Cisco?” she yells frantically, hurriedly fumbling the Quicksilver Device back into place to search the lab for him.

He’s not in his bedroom, his workroom or any of the vaults where he stores his new inventions, not that she thinks he’d have gone to any of those places when his keyboard is covered in ice and cherry syrup. She runs through the lab over and over, checking every room, then races upstairs to check every corner of the coffee shop for a sign of Cisco. She finds nothing.

Cisco is gone.

***

Hearing Harrison’s voice through Jesse’s communicator isn’t any easier than hearing it through Barry’s. It still sends a shiver down Cisco’s spine, whether measured and calculating or raised in panic. It brings a thousand memories unbidden to his mind: late nights in the lab, breakfast in the early morning, discussions over ice cream about anything and everything. Hearing that voice addressing him specifically sends a jolt of fear racing through him. He knows, logically, that Harrison is far away, but it makes him feel as though his foster father is there with him, like he’s been discovered at last.

“I want you to know that I still care about you,” says that voice that haunts his dreams. “Not a day goes by that I don’t miss you and want you to come home.”

Cisco cuts the sound on Jesse’s earpiece, knowing that the cameras and microphones in the office will still pick it up if Harrison admits to anything. He can’t listen anymore, not without feeling . . . something. Pity? Maybe. Guilt? Perhaps. Loss? He doesn’t know.

He buries his face in his hands, breathing deeply. He needs to turn the comms back on. Jesse might need something from him. She’s facing an enemy more dangerous than any metahuman they’d ever fought, and if Harrison had anticipated a sting operation he might have a trick of his own up his sleeve, some way to trap Jesse. His finger hovers over the key, trying to work up the courage to do it, when suddenly there’s a rush of wind behind him. For a fraction of a second he thinks that maybe it’s over, that Jesse left the office when the comm went quiet and now she’s back.

Then a clawed hand closes around his throat.

He tries to scream, but whoever or whatever is holding him is already carrying him out of the lab. Suddenly he’s outside, the city flashing by around him as he’s dragged along behind his captor, his own feet never touching the ground. The wind is roaring in his ears and he can smell his clothing start to smoke and he wants to shout for Jesse but he knows she’d never hear him. Even if she could hear him, she’d never get to him in time. This is Zoom that’s abducting him.

Cisco isn’t sure how long he’s carried through the city, but eventually they’re running through a forest and then up the side of a cliff. When he finally, finally comes to a stop he finds himself in a cage, manacles around his wrists chaining him to the back wall of whatever cave Zoom has dragged him to. He coughs, gasping for breath, and sinks to his knees in exhaustion.

Zoom stands outside the cage, watching him.

“What do you want?” Cisco asks when he can breathe again.

“You are the one who aids Jesse Quick,” Zoom says, and his voice is low and rough and demonic and Cisco knows he’ll never get it out of his head. “You aided the Flash.”

“Flash won’t come for me,” Cisco lies, “I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“The Flash doesn’t interest me,” Zoom informs him.

“Jesse Quick won’t come either,” Cisco shakes his head, “she barely even knows me. I’m useless to her.”

“She already has what she wants from you,” Zoom surmises.

Cisco nods frantically. “I made her a suit, and a spare one, and a headquarters she can use, and-”

“Her speed,” Zoom interrupts.

Cisco swallows. There’s no good answer to that, so he keeps quiet, trying not to panic.

“That device she wears,” Zoom continues. “It’s what gives her speed.”

Cisco stays frozen in place. Zoom shouldn’t know that. He can’t know that, not if Jesse is to stay safe. Zoom is obsessed with speed, and if he finds out there’s a device that can grant its wearer artificial speed powers he’ll stop at nothing to get his hands on it. He’ll kill Jesse for it, if he has to.

“You built it,” Zoom concludes. Cisco stares at him but keeps his mouth shut tight, and when he doesn’t answer Zoom reaches through the bars of the cage to grab him by the throat.

“Yes,” Cisco chokes, “I made it, yes.”

“You will do it again,” Zoom orders, not releasing Cisco’s neck. “You will make one for me.”

“Not on your life,” Cisco snarls, and the clawed fingers tighten, cutting off his air.

“You will,” Zoom tells him, “or I will lay waste to this city.”

Cisco closes his eyes. He knows that he can’t show fear, knows that he can’t let Zoom see that his threats will work. If he lets on how much it will hurt him to see the city burn, this demon will destroy it just to spite him. He knows what he has to do, so he summons up his memories of Hartley and every mind game they’d ever played together.

He raises his eyebrows, looking condescendingly down at Zoom. “You think I care?” he asks, laughing as well as his position will allow.

For a moment Zoom just stares at him. Then, just as Cisco’s vision is about to go dark, the speed demon drops him to the ground. Cisco rises, coughing, then looks up to see Zoom looking down at him with that unreadable, expressionless mask.

“No,” says Zoom simply, “you don’t.”

Zoom moves between one second and the next. One moment he’s just standing there, arms at his sides, and then suddenly his hand is inside Cisco’s chest, and there’s a pain in his heart like he’s never felt before. He doesn’t scream, can’t even gasp as he’s shredded apart from the inside, and the last thing he sees before everything goes black is the pinpricks of light reflecting off Zoom’s cold, cruel, unfeeling eyes.

***

Jesse finds Cisco outside the coffee shop. Or rather, she finds what appears to be his body outside the coffee shop.

He can’t be dead though, he can’t be, she needs him, so she speeds him to the nearest hospital in her street clothes and then screams and screams and screams.

When they hook him up to an EKG machine they find that he’s still alive. No one can tell what’s wrong with him, only that he’s asleep and completely non responsive. Not even his pupils will react to light, and though Jesse sits by his bed pleading he still won’t wake up. There’s nothing to be done for him but to wait for him to emerge from whatever coma he’s fallen into, so he’s admitted to the hospital and then simply left alone.

Because there doesn’t seem to be any physical damage they can detect, there’s a chance his condition is viral, so they give him a private room away from the other patients. Jesse curls up in a chair in the corner, crying softly to herself. This is too much, too much like when Jay was hurt in the lab accident, only the Flash isn’t going to turn up with some magic solution. Cisco will pull through this on his own or not at all.

Jesse stays in the room with him and doesn’t move, not even when visiting hours end, opting to stay with him overnight. She dozes lightly in her chair, listening to the comforting, rhythmic beeping of the machines that tell her that her best friend is still alive. She admits, privately to herself, that Cisco is more like a brother than a friend at this point. They’ve been through so much together. They’re family, and she can’t lose him.

It’s late in the evening, visiting hours have ended and Jesse is dozing lightly when she’s woken abruptly by some kind of commotion outside. Someone is at the nurse’s station causing some kind of fuss, by the sound of it, and Jesse pokes her head curiously around the door to see what’s going on.

Standing in the hallway, arguing heatedly with two nurses, is Harrison Wells.

Immediately Jesse pulls in her head and hides behind the door, but too late. Wells pushes past the two nurses blocking his way and sprints to the room where Cisco lies unconscious, flinging himself inside. Before Jesse can react he’s dropping to his knees beside Cisco’s bed, taking one of the smaller man’s hands in his and bringing it tenderly to his lips.

“Mijo,” he whispers against Cisco’s knuckles. “Mi cielo, please wake up. Don’t go, don’t leave me like this-”

“Don’t touch him!” Jesse snarls, overcoming her shock at last to throw herself between Cisco and Wells. She yanks their hands apart and pushes Wells away, and just then the two nurses come barreling into the room, an orderly hot on their heels.

“You need to leave,” says the orderly, a burly man nearly Wells’ height, but Wells shoves his hand into his pocket and pulls out his wallet.

He opens it and shows it to the nurses and the orderly, and peering around him Jesse can see that there’s a picture of Cisco and Wells inside, both of them smiling broadly. Wells’ arm is around Cisco’s shoulders, and Jesse wants to be sick.

“I’m his father,” Wells insists, gesturing to Cisco. “I have a right to be here.”

The orderly turns his attention to Jesse. He beckons to her, tilting his head toward the exit, and Jesse panics, but Wells holds up a hand.

“She can stay,” he says magnanimously. “She’s his sister.”

The orderly looks at Jesse, who nods hurriedly, then he and the two nurses leave Wells and Jesse alone with Cisco.

“You can’t be here,” Jesse says quietly as Wells returns to kneeling by the bed.

“I think you’ll find I can,” Wells replies, not taking his eyes from Cisco’s face.

“He doesn’t want you here,” Jesse argues.

“No, but he needs me,” Wells merely glances up at Jesse before returning his attention to Cisco. There’s no anger in his eyes or his voice, just pain and determination and the barest hint of grief.

Jesse sighs and prays for patience. “He’s afraid of you,” she tells him. “What’s he going to think when he wakes up and sees you here?”

“He’ll know that I care about him,” Wells insists, tucking a lock of hair behind Cisco’s ear. “He’ll know that I never stopped searching until I found him, and that I’m never going to let him go again.”

“You son of a bitch,” Jesse hisses. “Why should he want you to care about him? You’ve killed people, leaked dark matter all over the city and put people through sadistic medical experiments!”

“Everything I have done has been to protect and take care of the two of you,” Wells says, and his tone is one of finality, firm and confident and unshakable. It’s absolutely terrifying.

Jesse lets out a little sob, sinking back into her chair. Wells takes a deep breath and looks up at her, brow creased in pity and despair.

“I need you to understand,” he says. “I would do anything for you.”

“Then leave,” Jesse pleads. “Leave this hospital and don’t come back.”

“I will,” Wells replies, surprisingly her, until he continues, “after I’ve moved him to STAR Labs for better care.”

“What?” Jesse demands. “No!”

“I still have medical power of attorney,” Wells looks up at her, face stern. “You can see him whenever you like, but know that I will be right there with you. I won’t leave him.”

Jesse shakes her head, covering her mouth with one hand. She closes her eyes against the tears that threaten to spill out.

“He’ll have the best medical attention available,” Wells says, in what he probably imagines is a comforting tone.

“It’ll be bought with your blood money,” Jesse argues, looking at Cisco rather than him. She can’t look at him anymore.

“Perhaps,” says Wells, and he doesn’t sound like he much cares about the answer, “but he’s my son, and I’m going to take care of him no matter what.”

Wells has Cisco moved to STAR Labs in the morning. Jesse can do nothing to stop it, so she watches helplessly as he’s loaded into an ambulance under Wells’ watchful supervision. Wells doesn’t leave his side, doesn’t eat or sleep until they’re safely at the lab, so Jesse has no chance to try and speed Cisco away. Not that she would have taken the risk, what with the condition Cisco is in, but she wishes over and over again that she’d had the presence of mind to take him to Caitlin rather than the hospital. She should have known Wells would find them here.

True to his word Wells instructs his guards to let Jesse come and go as she pleases, but she has to take her belt off to get in and no one is allowed to come with her. Iris and Eddie are banned from visiting him, and Caitlin can’t get in either, although Ronnie manages to slip by as a STAR Labs employee. He and Jesse sit on opposite sides of Cisco’s bed, talking about how they might smuggle him out, but it’s mostly idle talk to pass the time. There’s no getting him out until he wakes up, and Jesse highly doubts they’ll be able to leave even then without a fight.

Ronnie can never stay long though; Jesse can hardly be there for more than an hour without Wells interrupting, and more often than not he’s there when she arrives. He holds one of Cisco’s hands in his, whispering to him in Spanish, and occasionally reaches up to stroke Cisco’s hair. If Jesse doesn’t immediately jump up and leave when he arrives he’ll periodically look up at her and smile tiredly. He asks about school, and how her day’s been, and sometimes he offers commentary, as though he has any right.

“I wish you wouldn’t risk yourself like that,” he says of her work fighting crime.

“I wish you wouldn’t hold my brother hostage,” she retorts sourly.

He smiles, as he always does when she refers to Cisco as her brother, and Jesse burns inside.

A month goes by, and still Cisco doesn’t wake up. Zoom makes a couple more appearances, but as always they’re few and far between. Jesse moves her headquarters to Barry’s old hideout, the Thundercloud; Cisco had claimed there were too many memories there, but for Jesse it’s just a place to work now that the coffee shop has apparently been compromised. Barry had been using it right up until he left, so there’s nothing to suggest that Wells or Zoom know about it.

Then, roughly five weeks after the attack, Jesse walks into the sickroom to find Cisco awake, alert and arguing with Wells.

“You can’t just keep me here!” Cisco shouts, sitting up and trying to swing his legs over the side of the bed.

Wells lunges forward and pins him down with an arm across his knees. “You’re not going anywhere until the doctors clear you,” he says, in a tone that brooks no argument.

Cisco looks ready to argue anyway when Jesse lets out a wordless sound of excitement, catching both their attention. She sprints across the room, much too slow for her own taste, and Wells moves just a little to give her space to throw her arms around Cisco.

“You’re awake,” she says tearfully.

“Yet still inside the nightmare,” Cisco glares over her shoulder at Wells.

As Jesse and Cisco untangle themselves Wells straightens his clothes, fixing his glasses that were knocked askew when he threw himself onto Cisco. The other two turn to look at him warily, and Wells takes a deep, steadying breath.

“The three of us have a lot to talk about,” he begins, clearly trying to sound reasonable.

Cisco’s having none of it. “I have nothing to say to you,” he insists, and Jesse can’t help but be impressed by the strength and conviction in his voice. She’d always thought he was afraid of Wells, but clearly he’d been angrier than she’d thought.

“I understand your reluctance,” Wells concedes, “but I just need time to explain-”

“Explain what?” Cisco snaps. “Why you killed two people? Why you tried to hurt my friend?”

“They were threats,” Wells says firmly. “They could have ruined us!”

“Hartley?” Cisco asks in disbelief. “Hartley would have ruined us? He tried to save us from doing damage to the city!”

Wells's expression darkens. “Hartley Rathaway took advantage of you,” he says, lip curling in disgust.

“Is that why you killed him?” Cisco demands. “Because I was sleeping with him?”

Jesse covered her mouth with her hands to hide her gasp. Cisco had never told her that, never told her that his foster father had murdered his lover.

Wells clearly wasn’t done ‘explaining’ though. “When you left I fell apart,” he tells Cisco. “I was in so much pain I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

“So you took it out on the Flash,” Cisco recounts.

“He took you from me,” Wells insists. “I had to make him pay.”

“The only person who took me away from you was you,” Cisco spits. “I couldn’t stand to be near you after I knew what you’d done.”

“And all I want,” Wells replies, “is the chance to make amends for that. Let me show you, Cisco, let me show you how much better I can be!”

“Is Clearwater Asylum your idea of being better?” Cisco snaps, almost shouting now.

“I was trying to help Jesse,” Wells glances at her, “your sister, our family.”

“Torturing people for your mad science experiments is not helping anyone!” Cisco yells.

“Not people,” Wells waves that away impatiently, “criminals.”

“I’m gonna be sick,” Jesse announces.

“Jesse,” Wells opens his arms, reaching for her, but Jesse shies away against Cisco’s side and he puts his arm around her.

“You leave her alone!” Cisco snarls.

Wells shakes his head. “I cannot, will not lose either of you again,” he declares.

He reaches for Cisco this time, clearly intent on pulling him into his arms, but Cisco thrusts out the hand that’s not holding onto Jesse. It’s clearly meant only as a barrier, an attempt to push him back, but once his arm is extended at full length something happens. A blast of energy, like a soundwave, erupts from his palm directly against Wells’ chest, forcing him back and away from the bed. His chair topples over and he spills out of it onto the floor, body limp and eyes closed.

Cisco stares at him for a moment, then lifts his hand to stare at his own palm. “How . . .”

“Who cares,” Jesse interrupts, “let’s get you out of here.”

Getting out is fairly simple after that. Everyone in the lab knows Cisco, the guards included, and their orders were to stop people coming in, not going out. Jesse retrieves her belt and speeds them back to the coffee shop where Cisco grabs a few of his things, then they two of them head for the Thundercloud.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Jesse asks once they’re safe inside.

“No,” Cisco replies, even as he dashes a few tears from his eyes. “I wanna talk about Zoom.”

He explains to Jesse what happened, most importantly that Zoom had in fact killed him and dumped his body. He recounts how Zoom vibrated his hand while shredding Cisco’s heart, then describes the feeling of firing the vibration blast at Wells.

“They’re connected,” he insists. “I don’t know how, but they are.”

“So when Zoom killed you, he made you a metahuman?” Jesse asks dubiously.

“Crazy, I know,” Cisco admits, “but I’m pretty sure that’s actually what happened.”

“What are you going to do about your powers?” Jesse wants to know. “Are you going to use them? Like I do?”

Solemnly, Cisco nods.

For the next few weeks they train together. There’s plenty of room in the Thundercloud for both living and practicing powers, although Cisco has to build himself some new equipment to run experiments on himself with. Mostly it’s target practice, once he can get the blasts to reliably fire when he wants them to, because his aim is absolutely terrible. Eventually though he starts getting good, to the point that he actually manages to glance one off Jesse during one of their joint training sessions.

Curiously, this causes Jesse to come to an abrupt halt, nearly faceplanting onto the floor.

“What happened?” Jesse asks, lifting up her shirt to examine the Quicksilver Device. “I can’t feel my speed anymore.”

“Did I break it?” Cisco wonders, kneeling in front of her to examine it more closely. After a few moments of tinkering though, he pronounces it to be in perfect working order.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually Jesse’s speed is back, and she zips cheerfully around the room for a while before coming to a stop next to Cisco again.

“Try that again,” she suggests.

Cisco hits her again, lightly and in the chest, far away from the belt, and it has the same result as before. Now to get around the room Jesse has to run at normal speed, until nearly the end of the second lap when she starts zipping along again.

“You realize what this means don’t you?” Jesse says when she comes to a stop.

Cisco nods, staring at his own hand. “It means you and me are going to stop Zoom.”

***

When Harrison wakes up to find both his children gone, to say that he doesn’t take it well would be a gross understatement. He’s not ashamed to admit it: he throws a tantrum, yelling at the top of his lungs and throwing things in every direction, pushing over tables and smashing equipment to the floor. There’s broken glass and ruined machinery everywhere when he’s done, and three terrified employees are waiting outside the sickroom. None of them had the sense to stop Jesse and Cisco from leaving, or even try, so he fires the lot of them then and there. He doesn’t care if it’s fair or not. He had his family in his grasp, and now he’s lost them. Again.

He sets about finding them, again. Jesse quits her job at the coffee shop, so he has that place searched, and sure enough his spies discover a lab concealed in the basement, clearly Cisco’s workspace but also clearly in a state of disuse. Cisco had been in the city, likely to help Jesse with her vigilante exploits, but as Jesse Quick is still active Cisco is almost certainly still here. Harrison has the city scoured, but without something specific to look for his spies are flying blind, and thus the search turns up nothing. He has them focus on the places Cisco had frequented while Harrison still had a hold on him, but that search is equally fruitless. In desperation he even goes through all the property he’d had put in Cisco’s name all those years ago, hoping for some sign of unusual activity.

It’s in going through those properties that he finds it. Most of the ones he’d given to Cisco have since been sold, and the rest are worthless warehouses or abandoned buildings. One of them, however, has recently had its electricity turned on, and when he looks back into the records he discovers that the electricity had only been off for less than a year. Coincidentally, the entire time the Flash has been out of town.

Harrison goes there himself. He parks an unmarked car across the street and waits, waits for hours and hours for some sign of life from within. Eventually the lights in the windows go out, and the side door opens. A blur of white lightning speeds from the premises, and Harry wants to weep with relief. So this is where his children have been hiding.

He waits until dark, when Cisco is almost certainly asleep, to sneak inside. There’s equipment, training rooms, everything one would need maintain a vigilante operation run by two healthy adults with superpowers. He places cameras and microphones everywhere he can hide them, connecting the feeds directly to his tablet, so he can see his children whenever he wants. Then he creeps into the last remaining room, where he finds Cisco sleeping peacefully on a cot under a thin blanket. His lip curls in disgust that his son has been living in such conditions, but he tells himself this won’t be for long. Soon enough he’ll have Cisco and Jesse home, where they’ll have warm, comfortable beds to sleep in.

He takes a moment to kneel beside Cisco’s cot as he had beside the sickbed, gently stroking the sleeping boy's hair and placing a tender kiss to his forehead.

“Mi cielo,” he whispers, low enough that he’s sure Cisco can’t hear him. “You’ll be home soon.”

He watches them for about a week. They’re steadily improving in the use of their powers, and Harrison redoubles his efforts at Clearwater Asylum to find a cure, this time for Cisco’s mutation. It seems that it was Zoom who had done this to Cisco, and for the first time Harrison is genuinely sorry he didn’t kill that monster when he’d had the chance.

Then, one afternoon as Harrison watches his children train together, they discover a new ability that Cisco has. It seems that his vibration blasts, while powerful on their own, can temporarily interrupt Jesse’s power. Whether it’s speedster powers or metahumans in general doesn’t matter, what matters is what they plan to do with this ability.

“It means you and me are going to stop Zoom,” says the Cisco on his tablet screen, and Harrison’s heart seizes.

No. His children cannot seek out a fight with Zoom. Jesse barely escapes with her life each time he attacks, Cisco’s powers are untested, and there’s no way even the two of them together can win. They’ll be killed, they’ll be killed and then Harrison will be alone again, alone to-

Well, he can’t let that happen. There’s only one way forward now, one way to handle this. His children will not fight Zoom. He will. He’ll defeat that monster and then they’ll both see how much he cares for them. They’ll see that he’s a better man than he was. They’ll see that he’s good, and that it’s safe for them to come home.

***

Cisco is woken up shortly after going to sleep by Ronnie’s ringtone.

“Wells just left the lab,” he says without preamble. “He had the Cold Gun.”

Jesse is back in the Thundercloud as quickly as Cisco can call her, and then he’s on the computer, searching for signs of where Harrison might have gone and who he might be about to target. Both of them fear the worst: Iris, Eddie, maybe Caitlin, but what neither of them are expecting is the report that a fight is occurring on the edge of the city. Zoom, it seems, is fighting a man with a large gun that shoots white flames.

Jesse speeds them over there, and they conceal themselves in a nearby alleyway to assess the situation. The report is true: Harrison and Zoom are out in the street, Harrison firing continuously with the Cold Gun and Zoom dodging tauntingly around him.

“You think you can defeat me with this?” Zoom asks in condescending disbelief.

Harrison pauses in his firing. “I made you,” he spits, “I can unmake you too.”

“You did not make me,” Zoom protests, somewhere between anger and amusement. “I was chosen for this destiny. I am mighty and eternal. I am a god.”

“You’re nothing but a two-bit freak,” Harrison shouts back, punctuating his statement with another blast from the Cold Gun. Zoom dodges again, and Harrison goes on. “The Particle Accelerator created you, just like all the other metas. If I’d known you would be the result, I’d have wasted those two years Rathaway wanted to adjust the damn thing.”

Whatever Zoom is about to say to that is interrupted by Cisco’s vibration blast hitting him in the back. He falls to his knees with a roar, and before he can move, even at normal speed, Jesse zips out of her hiding spot to fasten one of Cisco’s anti-metahuman devices around his ankle. Then she straightens and turns to Harrison, who’s looking at her in wonder and despair.

She presses her finger to the earpiece in her ear. “Did you get all that Ronnie?”

***

Wells can’t be tried for the murder of Hartley Rathaway a second time, but he can be tried for civil and criminal negligence, and that’s exactly what the DA does. This time no sleazeball lawyer is good enough to get the tape thrown out, and the entire city gets to hear how not only did the Particle Accelerator create the metahumans who’ve been running amok for years, but Wells knew there was a problem with it before he turned the thing on. They’re not terribly sympathetic after that.

They’re equally unsympathetic on the subject of the various doctors who start coming out of the woodwork to accuse Wells of pushing them to do unethical experiments on unwilling test subjects. Before long there’s enough criminal and civil suits to bury Wells, and by the time all is said and done months later, he’s set to spend the rest of his life in prison.

“We got another letter from Daddy dearest yesterday,” Jesse tells Cisco as she fusses with his hair in her bedroom mirror.

“What’d it say?” Cisco asks distractedly. He’s nervous, and Jesse can’t exactly blame him. Today is a big day.

“The usual,” Jesse assures him. “He wants us to visit him, give him a chance to explain, we’re still a family, blah blah blah.”

“Think he’ll ever give it a rest?” Cisco wants to know.

“Not until they take away that pen,” she speculates, and Cisco nods in agreement.

Jesse is wearing a very nice sundress when the two of them step out of the cab in front of the Ramon family house. Cisco opted for one of his usual graphic t-shirts, wanting to look as normal as possible. He’s breathing shallowly as they walk up to the front door, and he hesitates with his finger over the doorbell before pressing it hard, once. As movement can be heard from inside the house, Jesse takes hold of his hand and squeezes.

The door opens, to reveal none other than Dante Ramon. He and Cisco stare at each other for a few moments, both of them blinking in surprise. Then Dante turns, and Cisco’s face falls, before Dante yells over his shoulder at the top of his voice.

“Mama!” he calls. “It’s Cisco!”

Suddenly there’s a ruckus from inside, and tearing out into the front hallway comes a smallish woman a few inches shorter than Dante. She takes one look at Cisco and throws herself upon him, wrapping her arms around his torso and burying her face in his shoulder. She’s chanting something over and over, and it takes Jesse a few moments to understand what she’s saying.

“Cisco,” she says, “mijo, forgive me. Forgive me, mijo, forgive me.”

“Mama?” Cisco asks in confusion.

The woman -- his mother -- pulls back, then takes Cisco’s face in her hands.

“Is it really you?” she asks in wonder. “They told us you were dead.”

“It’s me,” Cisco assures her, still looking terrified. “I . . . I’m not dead, I was just . . .” he trails off, glancing at Jesse for help.

“Why don’t we all go inside,” Dante suggests, beckoning to Jesse as well.

They make their way to the living room, Mrs. Ramon not letting go of her younger son’s arm, and Dante ushers Jesse into a cushy armchair. He takes another one, but Cisco and his mother take the sofa; she seems reluctant to lose contact with Cisco, like she’s afraid he’s going to disappear.

“So, Cisco,” says Dante awkwardly, “who’s your friend?”

Cisco glances at Jesse, and she nods. They rehearsed this part.

“Dante, this is my sister Jesse,” Cisco makes the introduction. “Jesse, this is my brother Dante.”

Dante looks surprised, but stands up to shake Jesse’s hand none the less.

“I, uh, saw you play,” Jesse offers, “at the concert, when you came back after your tour in Europe. You’re really good.”

“Thanks,” Dante gives her a shaky smile, then sits back down.

“I don’t understand,” says Mrs. Ramon, looking back and forth between Cisco and Jesse, “why did you come back?” Cisco shies away, looking hurt, but his mother shakes her head. “No, I mean, why now? After all this time?”

“I . . . I wasn’t sure it was safe,” Cisco tells her. “Dr. Wells-”

Mrs. Ramon spits what sounds like a Spanish curse word, and Cisco jumps.

“I hate that man,” she explains, glancing at Jesse. “He took my son from me.”

Cisco shook his head. “But, you gave me up,” he said, looking at his mother with pain and confusion in his eyes.

“No!” she exclaims, pulling him close again. “No, mijo, never! He didn’t tell us, we didn’t know!”

“Wells told us it was a formality,” Dante clarifies, to Jesse rather than Cisco. He seems to be having trouble looking at his brother. “He said it would just be on paper. Then he slammed us all with a restraining order, and gag orders so we could never talk about it.”

“Mama,” Cisco breathes, turning to her in horror. “He didn’t tell me that! You have to believe he didn’t tell me that!”

“I believe it,” she says, nodding energetically. “What did he tell you?”

Cisco hesitates, then looks down, taking in air in gulps. “He told me you were happy to do it,” he says, and already he’s blinking back tears. “He told me you wanted to get rid of me, so Dante-”

Mrs. Ramon interrupts him with a hysterical wail, taking his head in her hands and dragging him down to cradle him in her arms. Cisco lets her, wraps his arms around her in return, and for a few moments they just hold each other.

“I’m sorry,” says Dante quietly.

“Why are you sorry?” Cisco laughs, disentangling himself from their mother to dash the tears from his eyes.

“It’s my fault,” Dante buries his head in his hands. “If I hadn’t gotten kicked out the first time he sent me to that school, we wouldn’t have had to make that stupid deal in the first place.”

“It’s not your fault,” Cisco assures him. “He did this, not you.”

“Oh Dios look at us,” says Mrs. Ramon, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. She turns her attention to Jesse, giving her a watery smile. “I’m so sorry about this, Miss-”

“Chambers,” Jesse supplies, “and it’s okay. I know the kind of damage Dr. Wells can do.”

Dante looks back and forth between Cisco and Jesse with renewed interest. “You said she was your sister,” he recalls. “Is she-”

“She’s Wells’ biological daughter,” Cisco tells him, glancing from Dante to Jesse to his mother, then back to Dante again. “We . . . he did a number on both of us.”

Mrs. Ramon hesitates a moment, then stands up, dragging Cisco with her, and offers Jesse her free hand.

“Any child hurt by that man is welcome here,” she decides, smiling sad but determined.

“Welcome to the family,” says Dante sarcastically, but he’s smiling too.

Jesse lets herself be pulled to her feet by Mrs. Ramon. She lets herself be folded into family lunch alongside Cisco, then listens while Dante gives an impromptu concert and Mrs. Ramon tells her about Dante’s first show at Carnegie Hall. She makes plans for Sunday brunch and promises that she and Cisco will get caught up on Jane the Virgin in time for the season finale.

“So,” she says as she and Cisco climb into another cab to head back to the apartment they’ve been sharing since Wells was arrested. “How do you feel?”

Cisco considers for a moment. “Better,” he admits at last. “Much better.”


End file.
